Saturday, August 06, 2016

"No Baggage" for Shailene Woodley

Based on a Salon article about a one-of-a-kind OkCupid date by Clara Bensen, Shailene Woodley is attached to star in the film "No Baggage," from New Line Cinema and Offspring Entertainment. Adam Shankman and Jennifer Gibgot of Offspring will be producing. Imagine an online date that includes traveling to eight different countries over the course of 21 days with one outfit and no luggage. As told in her original article “The Craziest OkCupid Date Ever,” the two traveled with exactly one outfit each and only essentials like passports, credit cards, iPhones, and toothbrushes. The Tracking Board has exclusively learned Woodley is attached to star in the film as Clara Bensen.

Shailene Woodley started her career as the lead character in Freeform’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager, before branching out into films, landing roles in features like The Descendants and The Spectacular Now. Her name got on the map in a big way when she starred in the popular movie The Fault in Our Stars, and then took on the main role in the YA action franchise Divergent. She’ll next be seen in the Oliver Stone film Snowden. Source: www.tracking-board.com

The Spectacular Now commences with Sutter’s girlfriend, Cassidy (Brie Larson), dumping Sutter (Miles Teller) over something that’s relatively minor but that we sense is just the latest in a series of disappointments. They had a lot of fun, and they’re popular in school, but apart from drinking and having sex, they never really worked as a couple. Reeling from the break-up, Sutter gets drunk at a party and wakes up the next morning on someone’s lawn.

That someone is Aimee (Shailene Woodley), a classmate of lesser social standing who enlists his help with her paper route. He takes an interest in her, not romantically at first, but as a pal. Though he doesn’t say it in so many words, he seems to find her innocence and semi-nerdiness refreshing. She’s sweet and unaffected.

These two central performances by Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley are key. Teller finds the kernel of realism that makes us sympathize with Sutter and root for his success. You can see why Sutter’s classmates love being around him but don’t respect him. He’s a fun guy, a people person – a douchebag, maybe, but never a bully. In his part-time job at a men’s clothing store (where his boss, played by Bob Odenkirk, is something of a father figure), he’s all the customers’ favorite.

Shailene Woodley, from “The Descendants” and TV’s “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” has an aura of kindness about her, a vulnerability that makes her a perfect counterpart for Teller’s cockiness. Spectacular it may not be, yet there’s so much tender, relatable emotion in these characters and their experiences, and so much underlying goodness in them. Source: www.ericdsnider.com

Analeigh Tipton is Megan, currently experiencing a deep, full and wide slump in her life. Jobless, loveless and crashing with Faiza (Jessica Szohr), she decides to engineer a one-night stand for herself at Faiza's urging and despite her own misgivings. And so Megan, on a website that looks just enough like OKCupid to dodge a lawsuit, winds up meeting Alec (Miles Teller), whose wit and whimsy inspire her to invite herself over to his place. When she tries to make her escape the morning after, though, the harsh light of morning is abetted by harsh weather, with the front door to Alec's building blocked by ice and snow on New Year's Eve.

Cinematographer Bobby Bukowski does what he can with the confined spaces of Teller's apartment, which is very different from Hollywood's usual, huge-apartment version of New York. Both Tipton and Teller are better than this material in Two Night Stand, but they do elevate its lowest points, and their rare high moments --when Alec explains to Megan that her ex-fiancée "has no idea how rare you are,"-- you get scenes so heartfelt and superbly performed. Source: www.mtv.com

Max Nichols waded through piles of “super bro’d-out comedies and by-the-numbers rom-coms” before he found Mark Hammer’s story about a love that begins in lust. Nichols strove to emulate the immersive atmosphere of the films he loved growing up: “The candid ones that gave you great characters, a great sonic palette, and awesome laughs. Movies like ‘The Breakfast Club,’ and ‘Sixteen Candles.’ Megan and Alec remind me of the wonderfully unremarkable people who are your actual, real-life friends.” They look and act young, but they’re on the fast track to middle age. Megan was pre-med, but she confesses to Alec that she really just wants to be a wife and mother. And Alec is content to work at a bank—not a master-of-the-universe iBank but an actual bank that might lend you money. His longest speech is an “ambition is such bullshit” rant about old folks’ careerism and consumerism. Source: www.newyorker.com